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What Does Viral Mean?

What does viral mean? No, no I’m not referring to your viral infection I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone about or that virus you caught because you have a PC.

I’m talking about a viral phenomenon, such as viral videos for example. What does viral mean for videos? Ever come across videos like ‘Charlie Bit Me’ or ‘LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!’ when browsing YouTube? With both videos landing over 40 million views a piece, I’m sure you have. Either you have or your friends have, whatever the case may be. These are videos that have ‘gone viral.’

What does viral mean for businesses? Well, other aspects of viral communication include things such as viral marketing and viral advertising. These marketing techniques use social networks and other forms of technology to increase brand awareness.

The ultimate goal of the marketers is to create a viral message that will appeal to individuals with high social networking potential. For example, people who have a large Friend’s List on Facebook or people with a large number of followers on Twitter have high social networking potential because they are linked with a lot of people that they can spread the word to.

Again, ‘word of mouth’ will spread much faster using technology. If people are able to get this viral message out to the people, it can result with the topic spreading like wildfire.

So what does viral mean for a company? If a company were to use this method, it could potentially be very beneficial and boost sales, while also getting the brand name out there to the public.

When I ask myself, “What does viral mean?” the first thing that comes to mind is social networking. Social networking has expanded communication capabilities in a massive way. If used properly, it can be an effective tool to increase public awareness on anything from a YouTube video to a start-up business to a charity.

For more information on using viral communications as a marketing tool, visit MySMN at simwebsitelaunch.com/mysmn.